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John Daugman, professor of computer vision and pattern recognition at the University of Cambridge, says: 'Skin dries with age, especially for older women.

'This shrinks the ridge pattern (already quite fine for women, with a spacing of around 0.3 mm), and wrinkles also develop which disrupt the fingerprint pattern.

'Fingerprints can 'rub off' for bricklayers, stonemasons and other manual labourers — their skin becomes almost shiny.

'Gardeners often acquire a lot of scratches on their fingers, and people who work with chemicals, such as cleaners, also suffer erosion of fingerprints.'

Medical professionals have also discovered that some treatments, such as chemotherapy, can cause fingerprints to disappear — sometimes permanently.

Jean Slocombe, a senior nurse at Cancer Research UK, says: 'Some chemotherapy drugs can cause hand-foot syndrome, where the skin begins to peel on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet.

'In severe cases, the fingers can peel, and it's possible this could change a patient's fingerprints.

'This should improve once treatment ceases, but severe scarring can alter fingerprints long-term.'

Fingerprints are considered more secure than passwords, because they are difficult to replicate and can't be written down, told to anyone or guessed. They can't be forged like a signature, either.

At present, all banks give customers the option of entering a password or PIN to access their money online.

Delegates representing major banks at a London cyber security conference were told many older people's fingerprints are too faded for the machines to recognise

But technology experts have predicted that firms could do away with passwords altogether to reduce the risk of fraud.

If they replace them with fingerprint technology, millions of bank customers could end up locked out of their accounts.

Banks have trialled other security measures, such as facial recognition and iris or retina scanning — but fingerprint technology is often favoured, as it is fast and people are more familiar with it.

Neil Thompson, of Absa Bank, a subsidiary of Barclays Africa Group, says having dirty or sweaty hands can prevent your prints from being read.

Absa is working with Mastercard to test debit and credit cards that enable customers to make payments by fingerprint.

To do this, the bank first stores a digital copy of your print in the card. Then, instead of entering a PIN when you put your card into a shop's payment machine, you hold your finger or thumb on a small sensor embedded in the plastic. If it matches, your payment will go through.

Absa's initial research found that this type of payment was only successful 79 per cent of the time.

Many transactions were declined as the customer's finger was not held perfectly on top of the sensor, or was wet, dirty or sweaty. The bank says for this technology to be introduced more widely, the success rate would need to improve.

Nick Dryden, chief executive of technology company Sthaler, says: 'Businesses like fingerprint technology because it's fast — with iris or retinal scanning, people have to remove their glasses and line up properly, so it can take too long.

Banks have trialled other security measures, such as facial recognition and iris or retina scanning — but fingerprint technology is fast and people are more familiar with it

'But it's not reliable enough to be rolled out as a primary way of paying for things or logging in to accounts, because there are loads of ways you can lose or damage your prints.

'There must always be a back-up so that if it doesn't work, there is another way of paying, such as with a PIN or password.'

Mr Dryden adds that using the veins in someone's fingers to identify them is more secure and means people with faded prints will not be left behind as technology advances.

Finger-vein technology works by scanning the inside of someone's finger and linking this unique pattern to their identity or banking details.

Customers then only need to scan their finger to pay for something or access their account.

The technology is being trialled at the Costcutter supermarket at Brunel University in London.

Barclays also allows business customers to log in to online banking with a finger- vein scanner.

Dominic Hirsch, managing director at Retail Banking Research, says: 'Banks need to work out if fingerprint technology is worth the expense.'

A Mastercard spokeswoman says: 'We know people don't like having to remember multiple passwords and PINs. Fingerprints are just one of a range of alternatives customers can use to authenticate payments online and in person.'

A UK Finance spokesman says: 'There's a wide range of security systems being explored, of which biometrics is just one.

'However, banks will always make sure every customer can access their account.'

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